Creating the Heuristics

In order to create the heuristics I've adopted my modified MDA framework and tied it in with all of the research I've been doing. Here's some more post-it notes!

Using post-it notes!

I arranged the post-it notes in a way in which I could look at them along with the modified MDA framework to come up with the heuristics. I used play test heuristics to give my heuristics table a structure.

Here's the results:

Table 1: Empathy Games - Heuristics

	Heuristics and Description
Gameplay
1.	The purpose of the game draws inspiration from a personal or life experience.
2.	The game conveys emotions gathered from the experience.
3.	The game successfully communicates the intended message explicitly and directly to the player.
4.	There is use of metaphors to reinforce the meaning or intended emotions.
5.	The game has meaningful gameplay and purpose.
6.	The gameplay keeps the player motivated to play (Please see Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of ‘Flow’ which is used to help immerse the player).
Game Story
1.	They story takes the player on a journey which results in some form of transformation.
2.	The story employs a structure (e.g. 3 act structure) to keep the player engaged in the storyline and/or progression.
3.	The structure of the story flows like a wave helping to keep the player interested by introducing new elements, furthering the progression of the plot.
4.	The game/story gives some form of closure or revolution (Climax) at the end.
5.	The narrative adds to the meaningful experience through the use of narration/dialogue/imagery or sound.
6.	Clever use of level design, narrative and game flow has been used to strengthen the delivery of the story.
7.	The story is implied; rather than being too direct (e.g. Journey, Flower, Dear Esther etc).
Mechanics
1.	The mechanics help to strengthen and enforce the player to elicit the intended emotion.
2.	Mechanics are simple to allow for the player to discover a metaphor or purpose.
3.	The mechanics are used well to mix up the gameplay while helping to further the meaningful experience.
Aesthetics
1.	The art style compliments the feel of the game and adds to the proposed experience.
2.	The audio compliments the feel of the game and adds to the proposed experience.
3.	The game feels great and does not disturb the experience which is trying to be delivered.

Modifying the MDA framework

So in order to create my heuristics I'm using the MDA framwork but I've had to modify it for games driven by emotion. Check out my changes and tell me what you think.

Reminder - some context

Essentially I’m trying to come up with a set of heuristics which designers can use when designing ‘empathy games’. This is the general idea:

The original MDA framework:

MDA Framework (LeBlanc, 2005)

I modified it based on researching games with are emotionally driven. From the design process, it seems that when designing for emotionally driven games it’s often backwards from the traditional way of game development. However, it can be argued that mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics are flexible… they can be moved around between the input - ‘emotion’ and the produced ‘feeling’ output. 

Modified MDA framework

I'm not going to be using this to help me create my heuristics. It gives me a lot of structure to work with when analysing empathy games and research. I'm using post-it notes to get my thoughts out on paper while I move them around. Here have a look:

Post-it notes!

Empathy Games

Sorry it's been a good while since I posted! I'm pretty shocked with myself... two post without any images! Commence the pretty images...

Nah but on a serious note - Empathy Games. What's an empathy game?

"A game which allows the player to understand and share the feelings of another"

Creating empathy games often designed backwards and it makes for inefficient game design but these games are pushing new frontiers with the medium which is exciting. 

Here are some games which I've been looking at!

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons - Starbreeze Studios (2013)

Dear Esther - The Chinese Room (2012)

Gone Home - The Fullbright Company (2013)

Journey - thatgamecompany (2012)

Papa & Yo - Minority Media (2012)

That Dragon, Cancer - Ryan & Amy Green (TBA)

Post Project Proposal

So I submitted my project proposal earlier this week. I stuck with what I said I was going to do. Now it's just up to me to get on with it during semester 2. I've got a bunch of research to continue doing if my project is going to work out. It's just a research paper, there's no experiments or evaluations so I'm pretty happy with that. Essentially I didn't want to do another miniature honours project so I've gone with something I'll be happy working on and it will help my own professional development too. It's ambitious but I'm hoping to come out with a game concept which I'll be able to take on and develop with a small team of people. 

Project Proposal

Now that I've been doing a bunch of research on emotion, emotion and video games and online relationships I'm about to dive in and start writing my project proposal. The idea is that I want to create heuristics so that I can help other game designers in coming up with game design which is driven by emotion. I've been checking out Jenova Chen interviews on YouTube to rake in any information I can about his design process.

I probably won't post again till January sometime. Wish me luck!

Cheers, 

Gavin

Emotion through game mechanics?

One of the things I've came across while researching games is conveying emotion through game mechanics. It seems the traditional way of conveying emotion through video games is with the use of cut-scenes which is basically film. For exmaple, I loved Final Fantasy X, I thought it was an amazing game and there's a lot of emotion portrayed through the characters, however it's all done through cut-scenes... now there's nothing wrong with that but conveying emotion through game mechanics is very interesting because the emotion comes from the players themselves, not what they see on screen. The emotion is simulated rather than elicited by the individual. Imagine a video game where you're constantly playing but it's very emotional. It may seem a bit strange I know... but video games are a young medium; they are maturing and expanding away from what we know them as. Films are great at what they achieve but imagine interactive content which delivers the experience but it differs enough to not be classed as a film. I'm looking at Heavy Rain here. It's a great game which does well what it sets out to do but there is next to no gameplay. 

Okay enough rambling. I would like to give an example of emotion through game mechanics and I'm using an old popular game here with a lot of respect to try and reach out to a big audience. 

Shadow of the Colossus - Team Ico (2005)

That's right, Shadow of the Colossus. If you don't know what Shadow of the Colossus is then I'd advise either checking it out or getting a copy for yourself. I'll dive straight into the emotion through mechanics stuff now.

Example

In Shadow of the Colossus you travel across vast landscapes in order to reach the colossal giants with your horse. This is basically your 'move faster' mechanic in order to get around quicker. However, players can't help but feel some form of companionship with the horse... an emotional bond where they actually care for their horse. This is exactly what I mean when talking about emotion through mechanics. It's just a game mechanic but the context in which it has been put in (the horse) has made the player appreciate the creature a heck of a lot. 

There's a bunch of other examples but I'd be here all day. Can you think of any game mechanics from games which elicit emotions from the player or even your own personal experiences? 

Cheers, 

Gavin

Journey

Journey - thatgamecompany(2013)

It's funny... I talk about this game a lot, people must get fed up with me talking about it all the time! The most unfortunate thing is I haven't actually had a chance to play this game because my PS3 broke a few years ago. I've watched enough videos and interviews from Jenova Chen, Robin Hunicke and Kellee Santiago to know enough about the game to understand it and know what it's about... I just haven't yet had the chance to experience it which sucks!

Despite not having played the game it still manages to amaze me. The narrative is told through wonderful artwork and audio with no dialogue whatsoever leaving the story up to interpretation which is a powerful way of telling a story in my opinion. Sometimes having your own idea of what's going on in the story is a lot more enjoyable than finding it out in black and white. 

I love what Journey did with the multiplayer too. They used subtractive game design and ended up with no way too communicate between players, nope, not even players PSN name; they were a complete stranger which draws back to my last post about instantly thinking of Journey when seeing the topic 'Strangers in game'. 

thatgamecompany have inspired me as a game designer to think about games differently. Games which are driven by emotion, grip the player and give me a rememberable experience. This is why I'm loving the experimental games which are coming out just now like Gone Home and The Stanley Parable. 

I'll end it there, cheers!

Gavin